Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26, et al. v. Pico, by his next friend Pico, et al. (1982)
Summary: School Board members attended a conference of a politically conservative organization, at which the books were criticized. The members returned to the school and in the middle of the night removed the books from the library. A review committee recommended returning some of the books to the library's open stacks, keeping some on restricted-access shelves, and keeping two out of the library permanently. The board disregarded the review committee's decision and voted to remove most of the books permanently. The Supreme Court ruled that a school board's authority is not absolute: it cannot "arbitrarily" remove books from a school library for subjective reasons. (Minow interview)
Books removed: The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud; Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris; Down These Mean Streets, by Piri Thomas; Best Short Stories of Negro Writers, edited by Langston Hughes; Go Ask Alice, authorship anonymous; Laughing Boy, by Oliver LaFarge; Black Boy, by Richard Wright; A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich, by Alice Childress; Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver; and A Reader for Writers, edited by Jerome Archer.
Censors' complaint: The books were called “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy,” and were said to contain "obscenities, blasphemies, brutality and perversion beyond description." http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/banned-books
Issue: Are students entitled to have “access to ideas with which [officials] disagree”? (Reichman, 2001). Reichman, H. (2001). Censorship and selection: Issues and answers for schools, 3rd edition. Chicago: American Library Association. The Supreme Court summarized this issue as: "whether the First Amendment 1 imposes limitations upon the exercise by a local [457 U.S. 853, 856] school board of its discretion to remove library books from high school and junior high school libraries."( http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=457&page=853)
Decision: Upholds students' right to read. The First Amendment protects students' right to read in the school library from infringement based on the subjective motivations of school officials. The 5-4 decision is limited (it states that the school board members, i.e., the censors, "might well defend their claim of absolute discretion in matters of curriculum by reliance upon their duty to inculcate community values") but it also describes the school library as a special place, saying that "libraries afford them an opportunity at self-education and individual enrichment that is wholly optional."(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=457&page=853)
Viewpoint: The school library exists to support students intellectual, social, and moral development, and students need access to differing experiences and points of view to enrich their learning. No individual or group should be able to impose arbitrary criteria on the school library collection.
Minarcini v. Strongsville City School District 541 F.2d 577 (6th Cir, 1976)
Summary (from http://www.acluohio.org/archives/cases/minarcini-v-strongsville-city-school-district): "In 1972, the Strongsville City School District refused to approve faculty recommendations for using Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You Mr. Rosewater as textbooks. Further, they ordered thatCatch 22, along with Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, be removed from the school library.
"Five high school students, including Susan Minarcini, represented by ACLU volunteer attorneys Michael Honohan and Howard Besser, filed a lawsuit against the school board. The ACLU argued that the students’ First Amendment right to receive information, as well as teachers’ right to share information, had been violated. The lawsuit also asserted that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated due to the manner in which the books were removed from the school library.
"Upon appeal, the court upheld the school board’s right to reject the books as part of the curriculum, but found the removal of the books from the library to be unconstitutional, referring to the library as “a storehouse of knowledge.”"
Books removed:Catch 22, Arthur Heller & Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut (Catch 22 & God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Vonnegut) were also blocked from the curriculum.
Censors' complaint: "No official reason was given for the removal; the only apparent explanation was contained in the minutes of a board meeting at which the books were described as 'completely sick' and 'garbage.'"(Reichman, 2001)
Issues: Can a school board override teachers' selections of books for the school curriculum? Can a school board remove books from a school library?
Decision: The court dismissed the students' complaint about selection of books for the curriculum, saying that state law grants authority of the curriculum to the school board and that's fine, but it said that school libraries are special places. On the question of removing the books from the library:
"A library is a storehouse of knowledge. When created for a public school, it is an important privilege created by the state for the benefit of students in the schools. That privilege is not subject to being withdrawn by succeeding school boards whose members might desire to 'winnow' the library for books the contents of which occasioned their displeasure or approval. Of course, a copy of a book may wear out. Some books may become obsolete. Shelf space alone may at some point require some selection of books to be retained and books to be disposed of. No such rationale is involved in this case, however." (http://openjurist.org/541/f2d/577)
Viewpoint: No student is compelled to read the books in the library, or to engage with any given book held there. The library is there to support the students' right to read, which is an essential part of their intellectual freedom.
Summary: School Board members attended a conference of a politically conservative organization, at which the books were criticized. The members returned to the school and in the middle of the night removed the books from the library. A review committee recommended returning some of the books to the library's open stacks, keeping some on restricted-access shelves, and keeping two out of the library permanently. The board disregarded the review committee's decision and voted to remove most of the books permanently. The Supreme Court ruled that a school board's authority is not absolute: it cannot "arbitrarily" remove books from a school library for subjective reasons. (Minow interview)
Books removed: The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud; Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris; Down These Mean Streets, by Piri Thomas; Best Short Stories of Negro Writers, edited by Langston Hughes; Go Ask Alice, authorship anonymous; Laughing Boy, by Oliver LaFarge; Black Boy, by Richard Wright; A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich, by Alice Childress; Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver; and A Reader for Writers, edited by Jerome Archer.
Censors' complaint: The books were called “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy,” and were said to contain "obscenities, blasphemies, brutality and perversion beyond description."
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/banned-books
Issue: Are students entitled to have “access to ideas with which [officials] disagree”? (Reichman, 2001).
Reichman, H. (2001). Censorship and selection: Issues and answers for schools, 3rd edition. Chicago: American Library Association.
The Supreme Court summarized this issue as: "whether the First Amendment 1 imposes limitations upon the exercise by a local [457 U.S. 853, 856] school board of its discretion to remove library books from high school and junior high school libraries."(
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=457&page=853)
Decision: Upholds students' right to read. The First Amendment protects students' right to read in the school library from infringement based on the subjective motivations of school officials. The 5-4 decision is limited (it states that the school board members, i.e., the censors, "might well defend their claim of absolute discretion in matters of curriculum by reliance upon their duty to inculcate community values") but it also describes the school library as a special place, saying that "libraries afford them an opportunity at self-education and individual enrichment that is wholly optional."(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=457&page=853)
Viewpoint: The school library exists to support students intellectual, social, and moral development, and students need access to differing experiences and points of view to enrich their learning. No individual or group should be able to impose arbitrary criteria on the school library collection.
Minarcini v. Strongsville City School District 541 F.2d 577 (6th Cir, 1976)
Summary (from http://www.acluohio.org/archives/cases/minarcini-v-strongsville-city-school-district):
"In 1972, the Strongsville City School District refused to approve faculty recommendations for using Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You Mr. Rosewater as textbooks. Further, they ordered thatCatch 22, along with Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, be removed from the school library.
"Five high school students, including Susan Minarcini, represented by ACLU volunteer attorneys Michael Honohan and Howard Besser, filed a lawsuit against the school board. The ACLU argued that the students’ First Amendment right to receive information, as well as teachers’ right to share information, had been violated. The lawsuit also asserted that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated due to the manner in which the books were removed from the school library.
"Upon appeal, the court upheld the school board’s right to reject the books as part of the curriculum, but found the removal of the books from the library to be unconstitutional, referring to the library as “a storehouse of knowledge.”"
Books removed: Catch 22, Arthur Heller & Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut (Catch 22 & God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Vonnegut) were also blocked from the curriculum.
Censors' complaint: "No official reason was given for the removal; the only apparent explanation was contained in the minutes of a board meeting at which the books were described as 'completely sick' and 'garbage.'"(Reichman, 2001)
Issues: Can a school board override teachers' selections of books for the school curriculum? Can a school board remove books from a school library?
Decision: The court dismissed the students' complaint about selection of books for the curriculum, saying that state law grants authority of the curriculum to the school board and that's fine, but it said that school libraries are special places. On the question of removing the books from the library:
"A library is a storehouse of knowledge. When created for a public school, it is an important privilege created by the state for the benefit of students in the schools. That privilege is not subject to being withdrawn by succeeding school boards whose members might desire to 'winnow' the library for books the contents of which occasioned their displeasure or approval. Of course, a copy of a book may wear out. Some books may become obsolete. Shelf space alone may at some point require some selection of books to be retained and books to be disposed of. No such rationale is involved in this case, however." (http://openjurist.org/541/f2d/577)
Viewpoint: No student is compelled to read the books in the library, or to engage with any given book held there. The library is there to support the students' right to read, which is an essential part of their intellectual freedom.